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Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Screw Topps 100-Card Challenge: 1974

Yet another part of my first big purchase for The Challenge. I was a little hesitant at first about buying Topps cards during this protest, but one of the criteria I set up for myself was that it needed to finish a set-or work towards that goal. These '74 Topps cards meet said criteria, and I'm now down to only two cards needed for that year's Braves' team set.

1974 Topps # 483 Atlanta Braves team card (40 cents)Everyone knows that 1974 was the season in which Hank Aaron became the all-time Home Run champion. And while that certainly was the highlight of the Braves '74 campaign, it isn't the only thing worth mentioning. Dale Murphy was taken with the fifth overall pick of that year's draft, and would soon become an Atlanta icon. The team also finished the season with a respectable 88-74 record- it would be the last time the club finished above .500 until 1980, when it would go 81-80.

1974 Topps #457 Chuck Goggin (25 cents)
This, as Ronnie Joyner at SABR's website writes, is Goggin's only Topps baseball card. A great read! Goggin played for the Braves during the 1973 season, but would be traded to Boston in March of '74.
Thank you for your service in Vietnam, Mr. Goggin!

1974 Topps #439 Norm Miller (50 cents)
This wasn't the first piece of cardboard to feature Miller, but it was his last one. And, like Goggin, the 1974 season would be his final year in the majors.

1974 Topps #634 Braves Field Leaders (75 cents)
Herm Starrette, the Braves pitching coach, had spent a couple of years in the majors with the Orioles before beginning his coaching career for the O's AAA team. Seventy-four was his first year in the Braves organization.
Connie Ryan, a former Boston Brave, served as the third-base coach for the 1974 Braves-and would later succeed Clyde King (who succeeded Eddie Mathews) as the Braves manager towards the end of the 1975 season.